João Carlos Teixeira

Research Interests

I am particularly fascinated by molecular evolution and seek to understand how different evolutionary forces interplay to shape the genomes of species and populations.

My Ph.D. project focuses on comparative population genomics and aims at understanding the role played by natural selection in the evolution of closely related species. To achieve this, I am using exome-wide high-quality polymorphism data for 20 African humans (Yoruba – Hap Map), 20 central chimpanzees (P. t. troglodytes), and 20 bonobos (P. paniscus). The main goal of my project is to shed light on the evolution of genes with shared and unique signatures of natural selection.